THIS stage version of Gerald Durrell’s memoir of a childhood growing up in Corfu is sunny, funny and, above all, fun.

Any story of a mad English family abroad can’t help but raise a chuckle or two and laughs of recognition by the audience. Add a magic menagerie of animals – some puppets, some people dressed up, some projected on screen – and you can’t go wrong.

Damian Cruden’s production needs bedding in – the opening night was delayed for a couple of days to master the enormous technical side of the show – and the overlong 90-minute first half could do with a trim.

But these are minor niggles in another jolly good show, the second in the theatre’s ambitious In The Round Ensemble season, and a complete contrast to the dramatics of the opening show, The Crucible.

Simeon Truby’s bearded older Gerald guides us through the story as his family, headed by Julia Watson’s, pictured, scatty Mother (“I’m a widow”), move to Corfu where the young Gerald explores his love of animals and nature in a series of adventures that inevitably culminate in chaos and confusion.

As it’s all seen through the eyes of an impressionable young boy, the characters of his family are broadly drawn – screaming sister Margo (Emily Pithon), gun-crazy brother Leslie (Stephen Billington) and bookish writer Larry (Jonathan Race) – but played beautifully by the actors.

Various foreigners, usually of a comic variety, intrude on family life from time to time, as do the animals. Michael Lambourne’s Roger the dog is a constant delight, threatening to steal any scene in which he appears, and the supporting cast of non-humans also includes snakes, scorpions, owls and a pair of destructive magenpies (Helen Kay and Laura Cox, naughty birds of a feather).

• Until June 25. Tickets 01904-623568 and online yorktheatreroyal.co.uk